


arthur through gritted teeth: she was lovely

by mightierthanthecanon



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7408402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightierthanthecanon/pseuds/mightierthanthecanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything about this is wrong. Arthur’s not supposed to be the one bringing projections into the dream—bringing Mal into the dream. Arthur’s not supposed to be the one hiding from the team. Everything is wrong. Everything but this. Everything but Mal.</p>
<p>(for the inception bingo prompt -- unexpected gentleness)</p>
            </blockquote>





	arthur through gritted teeth: she was lovely

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Ariadne cursed, moments after crossing a bridge. In the rear view mirror, Arthur watched her face fall as she realized her mistake—her first, since they started this job 2 weeks ago.

_Never draw from memory._

It was a small mistake, a tiny one, even. It would have barely been worthy of notice were it not for Cobb.

Cobb and his obsession.

Beside her in the back seat, Cobb frowned for a moment as he turned to the window. He took a moment to glance disapprovingly at Ariadne before looking right past her, out the window. 

Arthur couldn’t see his face, but he could imagine it–brows drawn, eyes fierce, eagerness warring with wariness as he searched below for something, anything that might remind him of Mal. 

_Like an addict_ , Ariadne had said once, of Cobb. Arthur had just nodded, saying nothing. Confirming nothing. Betraying nothing. Sometimes it was more prudent to keep one’s mouth shut.

Mal had taught him that.

“You remember this?” Cobb asked, scanning the water as they crossed.

Ariadne glanced at the bridge once, then quickly averted her eyes, a tiny muscle in her jaw twitching as she winced. “Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

So none of them were free of secrets. Should he be relieved or concerned? Arthur made a note of Ariadne’s reaction and turned his attention back to the road. That’s when he saw it. 

Ariadne hadn’t just brought a bridge into the dream. She’d brought the beach as well. Having already driven halfway across the bridge, it was too late for Arthur to get a good look at it, but he didn’t need one. The blue of the waves, the size of the rocks, the smell of the salt in the air—he would know this beach anywhere, even filtered through the gauze of Ariadne’s unconscious. It was Mal’s beach.

Mal.

Arthur’s blood ran cold, and his hands tightened around the cool leather of the wheel.

_Mal._

Ten seconds later they were still there, numbness taking over as Arthur sat motionless in the car, stalled on the side of the road.

“You all right, there, mate?” Eames asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder. His manner was casual, but his eyes, as usual, were far too perceptive.

Arthur blinked, coming back to himself. “Fine,” he answered. Arthur could feel Eames’ eyes on him, and put his foot back on the gas. “But I think we should split up.” 

“Any particular reason?” the forger asked, his good humor fading. His eyes hadn’t shifted.

It was a long time before Arthur looked back at him. “Just a feeling,” he answered.

“Here, at the beach,” Cobb agreed. “Just to be safe.”

And then Arthur was alone.

—

He smells her before he sees her—the expensive french perfume she used to have sent from Paris back when they were in college. It pumps his heart, warms his blood, and he can almost feel her fingertips brushing against his face.

A heartbeat after that, and the only thing Arthur feels is the blazing heat of a bullet in his knee — phantom pain from the Cobol job. His shoulders tighten, and he reminds himself to be careful.

Mal’s dangerous now _._

_More_ dangerous _._

“What’s wrong?” Arthur hears. 

Before he can spin around, soft hands come up over his face, blanketing his eyes in blackness.

It’s Mal.

She feels the same. She smells the same. Arthur’s conscious mind stops, overtaken by his body–his restless, anxious body–swaying backwards, into the soft and sound of her. 

It’s _Mal._ And it’s been years. 

He stops himself, shoving his hands into pockets that did not exist mere moments ago. Arthur can feel the dejected set of her shoulders, can almost see the disappointed moue of her lips and the tilt of her head behind him. “Not happy to see me?”

“I can’t see you,” Arthur’s mouth answers.

Arthur’s mind struggles. 

Everything about this is wrong. Arthur’s not supposed to be the one bringing projections into the dream—bringing Mal into the dream. Arthur’s not supposed to be the one hiding from the team. Everything is wrong. Everything but this. Everything but  _Mal._

Mal teasing him, Arthur pretending to complain. This is right. This is familiar.

It almost hurts how familiar this is.

“Oh, Arthur,” Mal says, her voice making a caress of his name. “You and your specificity.”

Then her fingers are caressing him too, brushing softly across his eyelids.

Even here, even in a dream, Arthur’s body wants to give in to the touch, to the _feeling_. More than that, he wants to give in to Mal. But his mind screams propriety, appropriateness, _Cobb_.

Arthur tastes blood in his mouth. He’s bitten his tongue.

This too, is familiar.

“If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with,” he says, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands. He’s expecting a bullet in his stomach. A knife across his throat. Perhaps a garrote. Mal was nothing if not inventive. But what he feels isn’t any of those things. It’s Mal herself, turning him around and drawing him into her arms.

“Oh, Arthur,” she says again, so gently that tears spring to his eyes.

That’s when he realizes. This isn’t Dom’s Mal—the Mal that kills indiscriminately and destroys everything she touches. This is the Mal that loves, the Mal that’s as quick with a kiss as she is with a joke. This is _Arthur’s_ Mal.

Not that Mal ever had, or would, belong to anyone. Least of all him.

His shoulders shake with silent, bitter laughter.

Mal’s lips brush softly against his forehead, then pause, hovering. 

Arthur breathes her in – Mal’s perfume, growing salty with sea spray, her dress fluttering against his legs, her palm soft against his lower back, her breathing, shallow and unsteady as it always was when she pretended composure.

When Arthur opens his eyes again, she’s smiling at him, wearing all white like she was the last time they were on this beach.

“Why would I hurt you?” she asks.

And the question is too sharp, too pointed. Arthur’s eyes drop, dragged by years of habit, to the ring finger of her left hand. It’s bare.

“I don’t know,” he answers bitterly. “Why did you?”

The cold, empty bed flashes before his eyes. 

The quick, whispered voicemail.

_I’m engaged, Arthur. I’m sorry._

The funeral.

His bitterness slides off her skin like satin. Like silk.

“I’m here now,” Mal whispers, her eyes shining, a smile still on her face. The sea spray sparkles around her in the sunlight, making her glitter and glow. “Arthur, I’m here now.”

Arthur swallows.

“Why?” he asks, unable to help himself, the bitterness and the anger bubbling up to the surface like champagne. Arthur had spent so long pretending it wasn’t there — swallowing it down with Cobb’s wine, with Mal’s polite, friendly kisses, pretending and pretending…

Pretending until he started dreaming instead of living.

Now, though…Now she’s here. Now she’s here in front of him. She’s not real, Arthur knows that, but at the same time…

He doesn’t. How can he be sure? His Mal was never real, anyway. She was a fiction of their imaginations. His first adventure in shared dreaming.

“I needed you, and you left me,” he yells, suddenly furious, his frustration turning into white hot rage. “You left me! For him!? What did he do to you, Mal?”

She stops. Looks at him.

“Why did you leave me?” Arthur’s not even sure what he means anymore. She’s left him so many times. But she always came back. Even now. She’s come back.

She takes his hand, rubs her thumb over his palm.

It burns like a brand.

“I’m here now,” Mal says, and presses her lips to his cheek.

_I love you_ , Arthur thinks.

After a moment, or an eternity, she pulls away from him. Waves crash. Cliffs fall. Edith Piaf strains in the background.

The kick. Arthur had nearly forgotten.

Arthur _had_ forgotten.

“I can’t stay,” Mal says finally, and he nods.

“I know,” he says. She never could.

She brushes her fingertips against his temple, then his cheekbone, then, finally, down his throat, pressing her hand to his chest. “I’ll be here,” Mal says, and the word is a whisper in the collapsing dream, more violin than voice.

_You always were_ , Arthur thinks, but doesn’t say, and holds her tight as the waves wash them both to sea.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a tumblr. come talk to me about inception!
> 
> sussoria.tumblr.com


End file.
